The county bringing this case has a city which tried to implement a discriminatory redistricting in 2006.

The entire point of the lawsuit before the Supreme Court is that they didn't implement a discriminatory redistricting plan, yet were hamstrung by the VRA.

As I stated before - no one is seriously suggesting that racial discrimination is behind any of the actions in Shelby County. But the VRA is being applied as if it was, rather than being acknowledged as not applicable in cases of partisan chicanery.

I don't actually see a legal argument Zarko. Are you saying that Repubicans are a protected class under the fifth amendent's reverse incorporated equal protection requirement?

You don't need a protected class when a fundamental right (such as voting) is at stake. And that's precisely what is at stake - the VRA deprives certain citizens of equal treatment under the law by instituting differing conditions for different jurisdictions without any rational basis for doing so.

Bullshit. They want a declaratory judgment so that they can get rid of it entirely. Even as late as 2008, officials in Shelby County, and its subdivisions were trying to dilute the black vote. They did not bring up any specific issues because anything that they want to propose is suspect.

As for the equal protection argument, it's wrong. The people can still vote. The politicians are just not allowed to rig elections in a manner that excludes black folk. Aside from that, the County has no standing to argue on behalf of its citizens.

The county bringing this case has a city which tried to implement a discriminatory redistricting in 2006.

The entire point of the lawsuit before the Supreme Court is that they didn't implement a discriminatory redistricting plan, yet were hamstrung by the VRA.

Are they actually arguing that it was not discriminatory? My understanding of the case is that they are arguing that the VRA provision is unconstitutional so that whether their redistricting was discriminatory doesn't matter. I didn't think the Supreme Court was even trying to rule on whether this particular case was discriminatory.

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As I stated before - no one is seriously suggesting that racial discrimination is behind any of the actions in Shelby County. But the VRA is being applied as if it was, rather than being acknowledged as not applicable in cases of partisan chicanery.

You can't just cleanly separate partisan and racial issues like this, they are intertwined.

And I for one would say that that the biases are mostly racial, given even recent history in that area. So yes, we are seriously saying that most of the policies that have been overturned, even recently, are racist. I Find it hilarious that you doubt it.

You can't just cleanly separate partisan and racial issues like this, they are intertwined.

Actually, you have to separate partisan and racial issues. The VRA is not intended to create a system of partisan political favoritism. As I've stated before, no one is seriously suggesting that racism has anything whatsoever to do with the Shelby County voting systems. It doesn't matter whether someone is black or white - the only accusation is that the Shelby County authorities are trying to disadvantage Democrats.

If the aim is to disadvantage Democrats, and you do that by disadvantaging minorities, is that not a racial issue? I'd say it is.

Edit: And from my understanding of the VRA, having the effect of discrimination against minorities is enough to be in violation. It doesn't matter whether that is the intended effect. Just like literacy tests were not explicitly targeting minorities in the past, changes today don't have to explicitly target minorities to be discriminatory if they have the effect of disproportionately affecting minorities.

, no one is seriously suggesting that racism has anything whatsoever to do with the Shelby County voting systems.

Bullshit. They attempted to dilute the black vote by annexing white suburbs selectively as recently as 2006. Your characterization is a joke. They do not even try to bring up any specific cases, since ALL of them are tainted racially.

Bullshit. They attempted to dilute the black vote by annexing white suburbs selectively as recently as 2006. Your characterization is a joke. They do not even try to bring up any specific cases, since ALL of them are tainted racially.

No, the claim is that they tried to dilute the Democratic vote.

Unless you're trying to claim that the redistricting would have been the same if those people broke 90-10 Republican, the idea that there is some sort of racial bias behind this is nonsense.

Yep.. you're useless. They did not even bother to plead that in this case because they know it's laughable. Learn about de jure discrimination, and then try and argue past am 8th grade civics class level. They claim nothing baout diluting anyone's vote at all, and try to patently ignore it in this case because it was already smacked down in '06.

Changes that overwhelmingly affect minorities are racial discrimination it's incidental to a greater, untainted purpose, and then it must be balanced against this. So, having a shitty, but legal, goal is not an excuse for minority voter dilution.

Bullshit. They attempted to dilute the black vote by annexing white suburbs selectively as recently as 2006. Your characterization is a joke. They do not even try to bring up any specific cases, since ALL of them are tainted racially.

No, the claim is that they tried to dilute the Democratic vote.

Unless you're trying to claim that the redistricting would have been the same if those people broke 90-10 Republican, the idea that there is some sort of racial bias behind this is nonsense.

Even if I were to agree that the motive was entirely partisan rather than racial, I'll just point out again that as far as I can tell that doesn't matter at all despite your claims to the contrary. From what I've seen it looks like the VRA (and in particularly section 5) explicitly covers things which have the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote based on race, even if that is not the express purpose.

Edit: And taking a step back from the actual law for a second, you seem to be arguing that it is fine to have voting laws/districts/whatever which result in reduced representation for minorities, as long as the goal of those laws is purely partisan. That seems absurd to me. A law banning African-Americans from voting could have purely partisan motives (after all, African-Americans vote overwhelmingly for Democratic presidential candidates), but it would still be a ridiculous and discriminatory law.

Even if I were to agree that the motive was entirely partisan rather than racial, I'll just point out again that as far as I can tell that doesn't matter at all despite your claims to the contrary. From what I've seen it looks like the VRA (and in particularly section 5) explicitly covers things which have the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote based on race, even if that is not the express purpose.

Which is why it is unconstitutional. You're conferring an exceptional protection based solely on race. What the VRA does is ensure that blacks in Alabama have a 'better' set of rights than whites in Alabama - or any voters in Pennsylvania.

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Edit: And taking a step back from the actual law for a second, you seem to be arguing that it is fine to have voting laws/districts/whatever which result in reduced representation for minorities, as long as the goal of those laws is purely partisan. That seems absurd to me. A law banning African-Americans from voting could have purely partisan motives (after all, African-Americans vote overwhelmingly for Democratic presidential candidates), but it would still be a ridiculous and discriminatory law.

A law banning Democratic voters would be equally ridiculous and discriminatory. However, laws that merely have a different impact are perfectly fine as long as they serve some legitimate legislative goal. If you claim 'disparate impact' is a meaningful distinction, you're essentially arguing against all law. We couldn't have drug laws - disparate impact against blacks. We couldn't have certification for dentists - disparate impact against non-Jews. We couldn't have prostitution laws - disparate impact against women. And so on.

And this is where you are being stupid. Constitutional doctrine the the exact opposite. To continue to posit this just makes you an idiot. Disparate racial impact is de jure discrimination, and is illegal, unless there is a damn good reason to do so. And the standard is high. If you insist on using a wishful thinking version of the Constitution, say so. If that's the case, the rest of us can ignore it for the infantile thinking it is.

Note the analogy of this case to Ricci vs. DiStefano, where the Supreme Court considered when unequal treatment to prevent unequal impact is justified. The narrow majority opinion was that unequal treatment is only justified if there is strong evidence of unequal impact among those specifically subjected to unequal treatment. Perhaps more scrutiny is given to unequal impact of voting laws, but unequal impact in general is not necessarily illegal.

The difference is that Ricci was a statutory interpretation case -- specifically Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Here we have a case where the meaning of section 5 of the VRA is perfectly clear. In order to rule in the plaintiffs' favor the Court has to find that the law violates the Constitution -- either because it is outside of Congress' power or because it violates some affirmative restriction.

I'm curious how laws barring felons from voting are still on the books - have they simply not been challenged? These laws have severely disparate racial impact and many were likely introduced for just that reason.

I don't think they were introduced in the modern era, I think they go all the way back to when felons stopped being universally capital crimes. In the law tradition counts for a lot. That said, I do recall some litigation trying to get such laws struck down.

And this is where you are being stupid. Constitutional doctrine the the exact opposite. To continue to posit this just makes you an idiot. Disparate racial impact is de jure discrimination, and is illegal, unless there is a damn good reason to do so. And the standard is high. If you insist on using a wishful thinking version of the Constitution, say so. If that's the case, the rest of us can ignore it for the infantile thinking it is.

Sorry, but 'disparate impact' is the wishful thinking version. A lot of folks on the left want disparate impact to be the law of the land, but it simply isn't. You can't just pull a study of disparate impact out and 'prove' racial discrimination.in a court of law - the only place that works is when you get to sit in front of government bureaucrats and your opposition is uninterested in pursuing it through the federal courts.